/sci/ - Science & Math

Could this have saved the Shuttle program?

>>10696775
abso-fucking-lutely. this was the whole problem:
shuttle wasn't a bad idea. shuttle was a good concept. shuttle was really really fucking difficult to build. shuttle had clear problems when they finally did so
but they never went and did a "Shuttle 2" and improved on the design when the flaws became apparent. there were changes between the orbiters over the years - small design refinements here and there - but for thirty years the same system flew, even when it really, really, needed to be iterated to ever have a chance of working as a concept.
NASA should've been building shit like THIS after Challenger. That would've been the perfect opportunity to do a ground-up overhaul of the program.

So I found this alternate evolution of the shuttle that was never built. Looks aesthetic as fuck.

Anyone know anything about this? Hard to find much info on the internet.